Building Automation

Your own personal conductorto orchestrate your building.

Public perception and tighter budgets have seen energy efficiency become increasingly important in today’s environment. Automated building solutions that reduce energy consumption are one of the simplest ways of reducing costs. Protege provides a simple, single-point solution that balances energy efficiency with the needs of your organization. Now that’s smart.

Access control systems hold a wealth of data about a building and the occupants – who is onsite, where they are, and even where they are likely to be going. Knowing when an area is occupied and how many people are in a room, allows for tight integration with air conditioning, lighting and other building systems. Extend efficiency by using this data to make some intelligent decisions around how the building is run.

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Configure lighting to come on progressively as staff arrive and turn off as they leave

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Turn heating off over weekends and holidays for a significant reduction in energy use and greater cost savings

Adjust lighting levels based on current ambient light

Control lighting based on areas that employees onsite are allowed to access

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Set lighting to adjust to full power when cleaners arrive in the evening to ensure good visibility

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Turn off non-essential items automatically when the alarm is set at the end of the day, and on again when the alarm is deactivated

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Turn on lighting when an intruder is detected to improve CCTV recording quality

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Configure HVAC systems to maintain a lower temperature when a building is unoccupied and increase to a comfortable temperature as people arrive for the day

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Temperature sensors provide feedback to the system to deliver heating or cooling as needed

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Turn off air conditioning when a window is opened, then back on when the window is closed

The armed status of a building is a simple way of determining that a building is unoccupied, and can be used to turn off lighting and non-essential items such as photocopiers, coffee machines, and monitors. When the building is disarmed, we know who is in the building and what areas they have access to, so only need to turn on lighting for the areas they require, and progressively turn on others as more people arrive.

Motion sensors such as PIRs measure activity, and are ideal for controlling lighting in low occupancy areas so that lighting is turned on when the sensors detect motion, and turned off again after a defined period of inactivity.

Area counting provides a record of how many people are in a particular area. When combined with anti-passback, this provides an accurate track of exactly who is onsite, and where they are. This information can be used to control items around the building at a granular level.

Intelligent decisions can also be made based on time. This is great news for a retail outlet with 200 stores where the cost of sending out a technician to regularly adjust the time clock for their electronic signage quickly clocks up the bill. Advanced schedules, time zones, daylight savings and programmable holiday groups, allow energy usage to be controlled right down to the second.

Controlling Items

Devices such as lighting and HVAC systems can be controlled directly via output modules. The relay in the Protege system turns on an intermediate relay which then turns on the power circuit.

Devices can also be controlled via programmable functions which use system information to make intelligent decisions that can result in the control of physical devices within a building and change system behaviour.

Integration

Protege integrates with many automation systems using ICT's Automation and Control protocol. This enables you to use lighting controllers that allow ramping or scene control where lighting turns on progressively, rather than just on or off. Activating a group of lights or a lighting scene can be directly linked to an action or event in the Protege system to improve energy efficiency.

Protege also integrates with many Building Management Systems which tend to run much larger HVAC solutions. Information is passed to the system via the Modbus protocol, allowing the communication and control of objects (inputs, outputs, areas, doors) from a standard industrial automation package.